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Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

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Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#31

Post by Symbiote »

Symbiote wrote: post #23

The closest I can think of is U+2b00 (north east white arrow) followed by U+20de (combining enclosing square). I suspect HN will eat the character: ⬀⃞ although they sometimes pass through if there's enough other text in the comment.

Alternatively, for a single-character symbol, there's either ⤤ (2924 north east arrow with hook) or ⮳ (2bb3 ribbon arrow up right). The combining square isn't exactly centered, depending on where I paste it.

There's a useful selection of arrows here: http://xahlee.info/comp/unicode_arrows.html

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#32

Post by irrational »

> It is unclear that the entity in question is actually an element of plain text...

As the author pointed out, emojis seem to clearly violate this excuse. What possible justification do they give for emojis? There is no way [I originally inserted the poop emoji here, but it was stripped out. That kind of reinforces my point.] is an element of plain text.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#33

Post by etrabroline »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #21

> Furthermore, the existing widespread practice of representing this sign on web pages using images (often specified via CSS styles) would be unlikely to benefit from attempting to encode a character for this image. Obviously enough text-mode browsers would be likely to benefit.

This made my head spin. It's like saying people already using the JIS text encoding would be unlikely to benefit from adding Japanese to Unicode. Absolutely mind blowing.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#34

Post by Symbiote »

Sephr wrote: post #16
josh_fyi wrote: post #6

The reason for rejection, for better or worse, is that this is a functional element, like a button, rather than part of running text.

That didn't stop the Unicode Consortium from including a left-pointing magnifying glass in the standard. I use this on my blog for the search button.

I don't think that's inconsistent.

I've seen a right-pointing magnifying glass printed in a book, and a left-pointing one would be equivalent for Arabic or Hebrew. I'd expect to see it in a school science book, for example.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#36

Post by martyvis »

jolmg wrote: post #29
toxik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why couldn’t the external link icon appear in technical documentation as it so often does?

Can you imagine it in paper documents or anywhere that is not hypertext?

Yes, I've seen it used as a way to steer the reader to open their browser for further information with URL written in plain text. Like hyper footnote

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#37

Post by andai »

etrabroline wrote: post #22
ZiiS wrote: post #12

It is simply factuly incorrect to say that a commonly used sysmbol would not benifit from being included in fonts. How can a committee working in this field posibly fail to understand that?

It is not incorrect, and they do understand but they don't care. They have esoteric philosophical justifications that exclude some commonly used symbols while inventing never before seen ones. This is the problem with putting a tiny number of otherwise powerless people in charge things. They clap become clap petty clap tyrants.

What is the significance of clap?

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#38

Post by baddox »

jolmg wrote: post #29
toxik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why couldn’t the external link icon appear in technical documentation as it so often does?

Can you imagine it in paper documents or anywhere that is not hypertext?

Yes, I would expect to see it in books about web design, for instance.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#39

Post by etrabroline »

andai wrote: post #37
etrabroline wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not incorrect, and they do understand but they don't care. They have esoteric philosophical justifications that exclude some commonly used symbols while inventing never before seen ones. This is the problem with putting a tiny number of otherwise powerless people in charge things. They clap become clap petty clap tyrants.

What is the significance of clap?

I'm mocking the overuse of the clapping hands emoji. Here is the first result from Bing for the search "clap emoji overuse":

https://www.reddit.com/r/justlegbeardthings/comments/6rl6mu/...

Which is something no one asked for, but Unicode gave us anyway and now everyone is annoyed by.

Re: Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode? (2018)

#40

Post by OJFord »

saagarjha wrote: post #27
Symbiote wrote: post #23

The closest I can think of is U+2b00 (north east white arrow) followed by U+20de (combining enclosing square). I suspect HN will eat the character: ⬀⃞ although they sometimes pass through if there's enough other text in the comment.

Hacker News lets some emoji and Unicode through, but I’m not sure how it’s chosen. Here’s some I copied from Wikipedia’s page on emoji: ℹ ⌛🀄🈚

Weird, I've never seen any before this thread, I thought they were all stripped. Bug or feature, I wonder?
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